Seduction and Lost Stories

By Claire Breukel

California-based artist David Hicks feels both connected and disconnected to the earth. His exhibition Clippings and Hard Fruit at Mindy Solomon Gallery recreates flora and fauna in a suitably oxymoronic aesthetic that is at once luscious in color and tactility yet contextually detached within a hardened and frozen stasis.

Similarly disconnected are the masculine fantasies of 1920s–1950s pulp magazine and paperback cover art. In The Shadows: American Pulp Cover Art at The Wolfsonian–FIU explores these genre’s fascination with ‘gangsters, good guys and good-looking girls’, highlighting a penchant for gender stereotyping and social bias.

If Define, Then Undefine is a video and sculptural installation at Dimensions Variable by Jamaica- born and Miami-based artist Jamilah Sabur that explores dislocation through oddly connected yet conflicting narratives. She recounts her mother’s Jamaican childhood, the history of C 19^th military and political leader Simón Bolívar who is dubbed the liberator of the Caribbean from Spanish control alongside flooded landscape imagery. From rain to shine, summer is the perfect time to see Lost Spaces and Stories of Vizcaya featuring new work by 11 South Florida-based artists commissioned by Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and placed throughout the estate. Recounting lesser known aspects of Vizcaya’s history, artwork includes a telenovela by Magnus Sigurdarson, a neon sign by Amanda Keeley that reads “Accept the gift of pleasure when it is given. Put serious things aside, ” and more.